Trivia / Chungking Express

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Brigitte Lin came out of retirement to play the drug smuggler in the blonde wig because she was that ecstatic to work with Wong Kar-wai.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Takeshi Kaneshiro speaks three languages in the film. The narration is in Mandarin, his live lines are in Cantonese, and he speaks Japanese to his ex-girlfriend.
  • Faye Wong can be heard singing a cover of The Cranberries' "Dreams". She, of course, was more famous in Hong Kong as a pop star.
• Completely Different Title:
  • For comparison, the original Chinese title means "Chungking Jungle."
  • The English title "Chungking Express" keeps the "Chungking," but the other word is completely different.
  • When screened in Japan, it was given the title 恋する惑星 ("Planet in Love").
• The Danza: Faye Wong plays the character Faye.
• Lying Creator: The credits say "introducing Faye Wong", but Faye had already starred in one film before this.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot:
  • The film's split structure came about from the need to shoot everything quickly.
  • The ending was going to be a lot more decisive with Faye and the cop meeting at an airport and flying off to another country together. But they couldn't get the license to film in an airport, and so the final scene was left more ambiguous.
• Throw It In!: Brigitte Lin's costume consists of a large raincoat, blonde wig and sunglasses because she was shooting a period piece at the same time. As she was often filming scenes from both on the same day, she didn't have time to go through hair and makeup twice, and this costume helped hide the one from the other movie.
• Underage Casting: Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a character who turns 25 in the film. He was only 20 in real life.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There would have been a third segment in the film, but it eventually became a film called Fallen Angels.
  • An early idea would be for the two stories to have contrasting settings — one on Hong Kong Island in the daytime, and the other in Kowloon during the night.
  • Brigitte Lin's character was originally going to be a retired actress, and Cop 223 was assigned to convince her to meet with some kidnappers who'd asked for her. Some of the scenes relating to this storyline were shot, and appear in the final film with new context.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The film was shot in chronological order, and each scene was written either the night before or the morning it was to be filmed.

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